


Secrets

by LastHope



Series: Superheroes of Olympus [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: 4+1 fic, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Superheroes of Olympus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 03:13:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2492354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LastHope/pseuds/LastHope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Secrets had never been a big part of Hazel's life until after she met the Ambassador.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets

Secrets ensconced Hazel’s life from the moment she accepted the Ambassador’s business card.  And they weren’t just the superhero sort of secrets.

The very first secret Hazel kept from the people in life after Alaska (aside from the mysterious boy who was there when she woke up) was the secret of the Ambassador visiting her and Pluto’s offer.  Hazel didn’t consider the mystery boy from her awakening as a secret because she still wasn’t positive if that really happened or not.  The morning after the Ambassador visited her, Hazel hid the business card in the drawer by her bed.

She couldn’t really explain why she hid it, except for Hazel just _knew_ that she needed to make sure no one knew about it.

And Hazel didn’t think about the card until much, much later.

* * *

The second secret she kept was one of Nico- her ‘sort-of’ brother.  It wasn’t a secret that Nico himself wasn’t supposed to know, but more of one that the public wasn’t supposed to know.

After Hazel had been cleared to leave the hospital and recuperate in her own home, she met her father for the first time in fourteen years.  He was a tall, stern looking man with dark hair and pale skin, making it painfully obvious that Hazel took after her mother.  (It was also at that time that she met her step-mother, Penelope.  Penelope and her mother owned a chain of flower shops located in Olympus City as well as other major cities.)  Hazel’s father was an influential businessman who dealt with finances in banking and accounting.  He was the rich and famous sort that nobody really was surprised that he had a, uh, ‘bastard’ daughter.  (Bastard was the word offered by Nico from across the dinner table as he stared at his peas with a bored expression.  He had looked jittery, tapping the tabletop with either his fingernails or whatever utensil was in his hand.  Nico had also made a point to look away from their step-mother whenever she looked at him.)

Nico’s secret was shared over the dinner table, after Nico had left for his room, declining dessert.  Hazel had been assured that he knew this secret was being shared, and Nico was alright with it.

“Nico is adopted,” Which was actually really surprising, because Hazel thought that Nico looked more like their father than Hazel herself did.  “But that doesn’t make him any less of your brother.”

Hazel had nodded, questions on the tip of her tongue but afraid to ask them.  She bit her cheek and let her father continue.

“You cannot tell anyone outside of this house this, understand?” Her father had stared her down, fingers laced together, with hard obsidian drilling into molten gold.  “As far as the media and public need to know, he’s your half-brother, as much of my blood as you are.”

Hazel nodded.  “I understand.”

Her father offered a smile, and Hazel finally remembered where she recognized his voice from.

He was the man who her mother had argued with the night before they left for Alaska.

_“Never come near my family as long as I live!”_

Marie Levesque’s voice echoed through Hazel’s memory, and she dropped her fork onto her half-eaten dessert, suddenly losing her appetite.  Nausea gripped her stomach as she hastily excused herself from the table, thinking back to how nobody would answer her questions about her mother or her condition.

It was a pretty obvious answer.

* * *

Hazel’s third secret came shortly after the second.  It’s one of Nico’s, and she’s told it in confidence in the confines of Nico’s bedroom.

It’s different from how people would expect Nico would decorate his bedroom, Hazel would learn in the coming months and years as she attended school and learned everyone’s opinions on her brother.

Hazel thought his room was homey.  His walls were black (and Hazel would come to learn that most of the rooms in the house were painted black, white, or shades of grey), but the carpet was deep red, and the comforter on his bed had the design of a Mythomagic character covering it.  Hazel wouldn’t find that last detail out until a different visit, because when she visited Nico in his room for the first time, he was sprawled out across the bed on his stomach, a different handheld gaming device in his hands than the last two Hazel had seen before.

Looking around the room, Hazel could see a TV on a stand at the foot of Nico’s bed, with different gaming consoles and wires and chargers littering his floor.  Shelves were filled with a mix of videogames and, surprisingly, classic literature.  _Les Misérables_ and _The Odyssey_ and _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ were teetering in a precarious pile at the edge of a shelf, and three different anthologies of the works of Edgar Allan Poe were performing a balancing act on top of one of the gaming systems, the books easily twice the width and triple (or more) the weight of the system.

Hazel had the distinct feeling that these were all expensive gifts from their father from some sort of unexplained guilt.

“So,” Nico rolled over onto his back, half hanging off of his bed, his console resting on the floor.  “You know.”

The sound of music from Nico’s game filled the space.

“And?” Hazel wasn’t sure what Nico was trying to get at.

She also wasn’t completely sure why she came to his room, either.

“You seem to be taking it well.” He was very distinctly not looking at Hazel.

“Why wouldn’t I take it well?” There wasn’t free space at the end of the bed so Hazel just dropped down onto Nico’s calves.  Hey, they were going to have to get to the point of siblinghood where torturing each other was the norm, so why not get started right away?  It’d get rid of the awkwardness at least.

Nico sat up almost immediately, affronted, as he tried to yank his legs out from under Hazel.  It didn’t work.

“I mean, ‘the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’,” Hazel continued nonchalantly.  “Who cares if we really aren’t related by blood?  That doesn’t make us any less of siblings.”

Nico’s feet were bare, and Hazel idly yanked at his big toe, resulting in a surprised yelp from him.

“What was that for?!” He was trying in earnest now to free his feet from Hazel, and she shrugged in response.

“Felt like it?” Hazel responded, more questioning than answering.

“Well next time you ‘feel’ like attempting to detach any of my appendages, do me a favor and _don’t._ ”

Nico said this all with such a straight face, Hazel couldn’t help it.

She started laughing.  Full blown, doubled over, side-clutching laughter poured from her mouth like a flood.  There was a moment of shocked silence on her brother’s side, before he joined in with laughter of his own.

When their laughter finally subsided, Hazel didn’t hesitate in swinging herself completely onto the bed, squeezing in between Nico and the wall.  She fell back onto his pillow, hair billowing out in a mess underneath her as she stared at the ceiling.  Nico hesitantly looked at her, uncertainty on his features.

“Do you remember them?” Hazel asked.  She probably shouldn’t have; it was a highly personal question, and Hazel wasn’t sure _why_ Nico was adopted.  Or why his adoption had to be a secret.

Maybe his parents were villains, and it was a protection service thing.

Nico’s face sobered almost immediately, and he flopped back onto the pillow with Hazel.  She didn’t protest him landing on her hair.

“Yeah,” Nico’s voice was soft, quiet, and if it wasn’t for him being right next to her, Hazel was sure she wouldn’t have been able to hear him.  “Not much, but some.”  He let out a shaky breath.

“Mamma died when I was nine,” He croaked out.  “I don’t remember much, but there was this, this, flash of light, a bang…” He trailed off, and Hazel didn’t push for him to continue.

There was a beat of silence that passed between them.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Nico was staring at the ceiling when Hazel turned her head to look at him.  Parts of his eyes were shining, like he was holding back tears. “But I’m terrified of thunder.”

* * *

The fourth secret Hazel learned, it wasn’t something that she was told.  She stumbled upon it, and made the decision to keep the knowledge of her knowing it a secret.

Whenever they got in trouble at home, or extra hands were needed, Hazel and Nico were put to work in Penelope’s flower shop.  Sometimes they were working the same shift, and other times it was different days.  (Nico was eternally banned from working with the flowers.  He was placed as the cashier whenever he was on duty, and Nico was not allowed to touch any of the flowers unsupervised.  Hazel still wasn’t sure why.)

It was one day when it was just her and Penelope in the shop.  Hazel had popped her head into the back to ask if they had any colored roses (Hazel never could remember if they did or not) when she found out.

Penelope’s back was to her, but Hazel watched, entranced, as her stepmother placed a hand on the pot that Hazel had just planted azalea seeds into that morning and brought the plant to full bloom in less than a minute.

Hazel blinked twice, opened and closed her mouth, before returning to the customer, apologizing, telling him that she did not know, and her stepmother wasn’t around to answer.  (It was one of many lies that Hazel would tell during her coming future.)

* * *

Hazel’s fifth secret she kept was one of her own.  It was an important secret, one that not many would know.  When the secret first came about, only four people aside from her knew the secret.  Those would be Pluto (because no secret was safe from Pluto), the Ambassador (because whatever secrets Pluto knew, his son knew at least half of them), and her two teammates, Riptide and Morph.

“Stand before the council, and give your name.”  Hazel had hesitated, looking back to her teammates, before taking two steps to be standing in front of them.  She took a deep breath, and lifted her head, staring at the heroes seated all around her, before fixating on the Ambassador, up and to the left, staring down at her with grey eyes and a curious expression.

“Diamond.”

Hazel could see the small nod of approval that the Ambassador gave as she gave her vows just as her teammates had done.

Hazel’s fifth secret was that she was the hero (heroine?  Was it more politically correct to use hero or heroine?  Hazel just didn’t know.)  Diamond.  That she was one of the many heroes sworn to uphold the peace (and laws) not only in Olympus City, but across the country and, though she had not known it at the time, the world as well. 

* * *

 

****


End file.
